


The Moral Dilemma

by xladydexth



Category: ben barnes - Fandom
Genre: College, England (Country), F/M, Flirting, Forbidden Love, Kink, Professor - Freeform, Sexual Content, Submissive, UK - Freeform, University, adultromance, agegap, explicit - Freeform, relationship, student, teacher
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-16
Updated: 2021-03-21
Packaged: 2021-03-25 10:55:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,762
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30088041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xladydexth/pseuds/xladydexth
Summary: Aria is a part time sandwich maker and a full time health care student and she feels like she's drowning. She's very rarely on time, she never understands the course content and all the books she needs to complete her assignments are already checked out.On top of being a failure at Uni, Aria's dating history is unforuntate, to say the least, so she's officially sworn off boys.She's decided the best thing for her is to concentrate on school and manifesting the life she wants. Living vicariously through her best friend Mia's love life is good enough for her anyway.Until she realises, there might be more to her favorite customer, Theo, than meets the eye, and he's definitely not a 'boy'.Mature content.
Relationships: Student/Professor - Relationship, Student/Teacher - Relationship
Kudos: 1





	1. Aria

**Author's Note:**

> AN  
> The H, Theo, looks like Ben and may have some simalarities but it is not Ben.

Aria looked up from her task when she heard the sliding sound of the automatic doors opening, a second later she felt the gush of cold air entering the store and shivered. When she could make out her friend and co-workers head of curly black hair she turned her back to the shop floor and continued cutting the day’s veg. ‘Yo yo yo’ Mia shouted as she entered the staff only area, situated in the back of the store. 

"You’re way too chipper for 7:30, hun" Aria grumbled, trying her best to appease her itchy nose by scrunching it up and continued chopping. This always happened, as soon as she donned gloves, something itched

"Well, lets just say I had a very nice wake up call’ Mia smirked, picking up a fresh cookie from a tray and taking a huge bite, moaning in satisfaction and licking the melted chocolate off her lips. Aria was used to her best friend's antics, she wished she could be as carefree and easy going as Mia, but alas, she was not. 

The idea of a one night stand made her skin crawl and she couldn’t see herself with a fuck buddy. She was too sensitive for that, historically she had always been the one to get too attached too quickly. Always the one with her heart broken. This was something Aria had come to terms with, so she’d sworn off men. If they weren’t going to treat her how she deserved then fuck them. Aria had grown up surrounded by strong, independent women who knew their worth and thankfully this had rubbed off on her. She didn’t think she had particularly high standards, actually, she knew she didn’t have high standards. Aria’s dating history was pretty abysmal. First, there was Jason, her highschool sweetheart, who definitely, without a doubt couldn’t be described as such. They were together for 1 year and no matter when she visited the bin next to his bed was full of tissues. Yep, you know what I mean,  _ those _ kinds of tissues. Of course I wasn’t against the act, please it might be my favorite hobby, but he could of emptied the stupid bin. They broke up because she caught him with his hands down Jessica’s pants, behind the sixth form block. 

Her dating history didn’t improve much from there, it was only recently she’d decided she deserved to be treated better and her embargo began. The straw that broke the camel's back was Joseph. Aria had no one idea what she saw in Joseph, actually, no one had any idea what she saw in Joseph. He was self-centered, bad in bed with no goals or direction in life. She’d met him on a night out, he  _ said  _ he was a self employed contractor between jobs. When, in actual fact he’d completed his first year of a tiling course before dropping out and he’d been on benefits ever since, with absolutely no intention of changing that any time soon. It had taken Aria longer than she cared to admit to see sense. 

When Aria zoned back into the conversation Mia was changing out of her leggings and leeds fest hoodie, into the spare uniform she kept at work for occasions such as this. Aria wasn’t entirely sure how she managed to keep a clean uniform in the shop at all times, in case a tinder date turned into a one night stand, but when Mia put her mind to something she could accomplish it. "You know there’s a toilet back there you could get changed in, right?" Aria questioned, turning round to check there was no one loitering about in the store seating area who could see a half naked Mia.. 

"Yes of course, but the customers really shouldn’t be perving on us back here," Mia stated, matter of factly, not a care in the world. 

"There’s cameras you big idiot!" Aria waved her arms, gesturing towards the security monitor before throwing the closest thing, a tomato, at her friend. Mia, thankfully, had quite quick reflexes for a hungover person and was able to nab it out of the air before it collided with her face.

"Tit" Mia grumbled and headed towards the end of the counter to serve the customer who was walking through the automatic doors. Halfway there Mia paused, froze, twirled round on the ball of her foot and came marching back towards Aria. Mia wrapped her arm around Aria’s waist and ushered her out of the back area, "it’s your favorite customer" Mia sing songed close to her ear in a hushed voice, Mia's hot breath causing her ear to tingle. 

"Eurgh don’t do that!" Aria grimaced, walking towards the tills and rubbing at her ear, she didn’t have a clue which customer Mia was referring to. She didn't particularly like any of them. 

"Hi, what can I get for you today?"  Aria smiled as she approached, her breath catching in her throat when she turned to face the person standing on the other side of the counter.  _ Oh. Him.  _ She coughed, choking on the breath stuck in her airway. 

"Are you okay?" His eyebrows bunching together in concern, causing his forehead to wrinkle.

She coughed a few more times to clear her throat, and patted her chest, "yeah, I’m fine thank you, sorry, what can I get for you?"

She didn’t need to ask. He came in every morning, every  _ single _ morning, -well, as far as she knew, Aria wasn’t here every single morning but she’d never done a morning shift without him making an appearance- and ordered exactly the same thing. A soya cappuccino. She had no idea why he came to a sandwich deli to order subpar coffee when there was a cafe nero around the corner.  _ She _ definitely wouldn’t drink the coffee here if she had a choice, as it stood, she never because she was a poor student and would take any freebies she could get her hands on. He relayed his order and Aria tried, really really tried, not to stare too much as the coffee machine whirred and sputtered whilst pouring his drink. But it was  _ hard _ . He tapped away on his phone, running his tongue over his full bottom lip then biting down on it as he concentrated. Aria tried not to implode from how hot that was. He looked frustrated, his brow furrowed and he let out a big sigh and rubbed his hand over his stubble then through his dark hair. His hair was longer on top and shorter at the sides, it fell ‘ _ just so _ ’ as his long fingers moved through it, the man had achieved in seconds, what some people spent an hour carefully curating. Fuck, he was beautiful. Like a work of art, she would not be shocked if she found a marble statue in his honour in the art gallery the next time she visited. God had been really unfair when he created Mr. Soya Cappuccino and decided to only make one. 

"Thanks, Aria," he tapped his card on the reader, saluted her with his paper cup and sauntered out of the store. Aria would never admit how much she enjoyed watching him leave, she went as far as busying herself with  _ organising _ the till area so she had a reason to spend time facing the exit, whilst thinking about the way her name sounded on his lips. Today he was wearing a black woolen overcoat (sadly covering his bum, the highlight of Aria’s day during warmer months), dark grey suit pants and black brogues. The man  _ always  _ looked put together. Aria had never seen him with a hair out place. It was infuriating. Especially since she was currently sporting a messy bun that resembled a birds nest - after having woken up at 05:00 to be at the shop for 06:00- and a huge spot on her hair chin.  _ Fabulous _ . Aria was well aware, a man like that, who wore expensive suits and looked like he was about to walk into a boardroom at 08:00, was never going to look twice at her. Aria didn’t think her particular brand would be his  _ vibe _ , a 25 year old, part time sandwich maker, full time healthcare student with a mop of dyed silver hair that hadn’t been cut in two years and sleeves full of tattoos on both arms. He was likely interested in women who wore calvin klein, had a good career and didn’t associate with people who were using their fingers to brush their teeth, which Mia was currently doing. Or maybe he was in a happy relationship and I should stop drooling after him.

"Please go next door and buy yourself a toothbrush," Aria rubbed her hand across her face in exasperation turning to face the archway that led into the back area. 

"No money" Mia shrugged, continuing to use her phone as a mirror in her quest for cleaner teeth. 

Aria brushed past her and pulled her grey backpack down from its hook, dropping it onto the tile floor that was years old and needed replacing, she crouched down and rummaged through the mess, pulling out old train tickets and receipts and depositing them on the floor next to her. ‘Where the fuck is it,’ she grumbled to herself a second before her hand found her purse. Aria unzipped the little coin compartment and handed Mia some pound coins, ‘here, please, I do not want to smell your dick breath all day.’

"Well, technically, it’s not _my_ _dick_ breath, it’s _his dick"_

"You’re disgusting and not funny, go." Aria swore she just said these things to get a reaction.

Mia rolled her eyes at me and skipped out of the shop to go to the tesco next door and Aria returned to her food prep. Mia took a lot longer than necessary and when she returned was holding an extra large carton of apple juice. "Hangover necessities" she supplied when Aria raised an eyebrow at her. 

" _ Of course _ . Now come on, we’re behind and I really can’t be arsed dealing with Marcus’ wrath when he gets here at 11:00. The to do list is on the whiteboard, pick something." Mia huffing behind her as she placed her tomato into the slicing machine. 

We chatted throughout the morning, Mia told Aria all about her tinder date from the night before. She told me Carl’s tinder bio had stated ‘ _ bad at tindering, good at fingering _ ’.

"And you thought this guy would be a good idea?!" Aria shrieked. 

Mia was hysterically laughing, slapping the wall and holding her chest as the giggles bubbled up and out of her throat. 

"What was his opening line?" Aria questioned eagerly, my mouth was practically salivating at this morning's juicy gossip. 

_ " 'I would say ‘god bless you’ but it looks like he already did _ ," she grinned

"Smooooth!" Aria dragged out the ‘oo’ sound, Carl had a way with words, she was impressed, "I agree with him, god definitely blessed you, you’re hot. What did you reply?"

‘ _ He most definitely did, I mean… look at you _ ,’ Mia bit down on her lip to stop the colossal grin spreading across her face. 

"MIA!" Aria shrieked again, throwing a soggy slice of ham towards her, she cackled and jumped out of the way, the ham hitting the wall with a loud slapping sound and sticking there. "What a shot" Aria congratulated herself, peeling the ham off and tossing it into the bin. "So tell me, where did you go on your date?"

"He picked me up and I just went round to his," Mia was doing little jumps with her fingers in the belt loops to pull up her black skinny jeans. 

"Good in bed?" It had been a LONG time since Aria had gotten laid, she had frequent orgasms due to the special box in her bedside cupboard, but it wasn’t the same as actual sex with someone else. She was ashamed to admit, Mr. Soya Cappuccino had featured as the star of her fantasies a number of times and he was exceptionally good at everything they’d tried. In her head, ofcourse. 

"Average, good size dick, didn’t really know how to use it. 5/10, probably won’t go back" Mia was cutthroat in her evaluation. Aria liked that about her, Mia told you straight. Though she hoped Mia hadn’t been as blunt to the lads face, she felt squeamish just thinking about that interaction.

At 11:00 on the dot Marcus strutted down the counter area towards us. Mia and Aria both rolled their eyes at each other, the fun was over. 

"Morning gang," he clapped his chubby hands together, "how we doin’ today?" Mia didn’t understand how he’d exerted enough energy to produce the tiny beads of sweat gathering around his temples. It wasn’t like it was hot outside, it was January for christ sake. She offered him a tight lipped smile. 

"Sound"

"Fab"

The girls replied simultaneously. 

"Great! Let’s crack on then shall we, it’ll be the lunch rush soon"


	2. Aria

It was Aria’s day off from work, which meant she had lectures. She very rarely had the joy of experiencing a lie in, or a duvet day. When she decided to go back to education and get her degree she knew it was going to be hard, she wasn’t  _ completely _ clueless, but the past 2 years had been difficult. She shared a flat in the city centre with her roommate, Zeb, and her loans barely covered the cost of her bills so she worked her arse off. There was a cute sea lion calendar hanging on her kitchen wall and she religiously marked the days with a big cross, counting down to graduation day and a proper wage. She was currently trudging across the city to campus for her anatomy and physiology lecture. Aria accidentally stepped into an inconspicuous puddle, a rather deceivingly deep one as a matter of fact. Thankfully her black dr. marten boots had saved her from getting her socks soggy, but her denim dungarees had turned a deeper shade and looked slightly sodden around her ankles. Aria sighed to herself,  _ fabulous _ . 

To be fair, this morning probably couldn’t get any worse, Aria hated anatomy and physiology. She just didn’t  _ get _ it. When her classmates around her were nodding vigorously and jotting things down, shouting out answers and asking insightful questions, Aria felt like they were speaking another language. They could have been speaking Simlish. Infact, Aria sometimes wished life was like a game of Sims. She’d be able to see what people were thinking in a cloud above their head, if they were being deceitful they’d be doing a creepy walk and she could use the cheat code MOTHERLODE to pad out her bank. Aria pondered what she’d do if she could earn £50,000 by clicking ctrl-shift-c whilst humming along to Daniel Caesar’s  _ Best Part  _ and continuing her walk to the Health Sciences building. 

Her cohort was mingling outside the doors for the previous class to vacate. Aria spotted a group of people she felt comfortable chatting to and meandered over to the semi circle of hard chairs they were perched on. They responded with a chorus of greetings to Aria’s hello and continued their conversation about recent celebrity gossip and videos they’d seen on tiktok. 

“But what _ side _ of TikTok are you on?!” Katie, a girl who’d been in Aria’s presentation group last year, questioned Emily. 

“I don’t know what you mean!” Emily huffed, locking eyes with each of the people squished round the small table in exasperation.

“She’s a lost cause,” Katie proclaimed “if she doesn’t know, the only videos she’s seeing are off Addison Rae and the guy with the square head,” Katie made a puking gesture. 

“Please, you can’t talk. I know the only videos you’re seeing are ones about fictional men with faerie wings and book porn,” Jessie chided Katie, poking her in the ribs. Aria giggled along with everyone else, but she understood Katie’s struggle of wishing a fictional man was real. If she wasn’t kidnapped by a tall, dark haired, magical immortal, with powers akin to darkness and mummy issues soon, she’d cry. 

Aria lost track of the conversation then, because a man was strolling through the crowd of students towards the lecture theatre door. They were parting for him like the red sea, a surprising feat, because she’d always found students to lack basic manners. He was radiating a cool, calm, confidence that they couldn’t ignore as his long legs carried him towards the double doors. Though, the most shocking thing about the view in front of her eyes was that this man frequented her work place, it was _ the _ man,  _ the _ customer. A number of thoughts sprung to Aria’s mind,  _ what was he doing here? She’d never seen him before so he couldn’t be a student, Molly was supposed to be teaching them today so he wasn’t the lecturer, he definitely wasn’t here to see her because his eyes hadn’t even crossed her.  _ Aria mentally chided herself, he would  _ never _ have been there to see her, she needed to get a hold of herself. Something else was obvious to Aria about the scene unfolding before her, every single female and some males' gaze was glued to Mr. Soya Cappuccino. She couldn’t blame them, but the white hot pang of jealousy that shot through her couldn’t be stopped. She enjoyed keeping him a secret, analysing the way he said her name, drooling over his hotness, but now the world and his wife knew of his existence and she just didn't think that was fair. 

Mr. Soya disappeared into the lecture theatre, Aria heard a rough tone that didn’t brook no argument and suddenly countless students were filing out of the theatre and through the crowd towards the stairs.

“I apologise for that, the room was booked but they clearly lost track of time” Mr. Soya’s head popped back out as he held the door open and gestured for people to begin entering the room with a friendly smile. Aria imagined he was the type of person to find joy in the little things, like sunsets or pretty architecture. She could picture him filming selfie videos, with his smiling face in the corner of the frame to share whatever had made him smile with others. Aria’s imagination ran away with her and she daydreamed about doing those things together. Of him holding the phone camera out, as far as his long arms could reach to fit them both in, in front of the Colosseum, the Eiffel Tower, Guadi’s Sagrada Familia.  _ My, my _ . For someone sworn off boys she was doing an awful lot of simping over someone she didn’t even know. 

Mr. Soya was standing at the podium at the front of the theatre when Aria walked in. She made her way to her usual seat, far left, 3 rows back, next to the wall. The lecture theatre consisted of three sections of seating, a larger section in the middle with two smaller sections running against each wall and steps separating them, leading to the back row right at the top of the ampitheatre. She wasn’t the biggest fan of the cramped seating arrangements, but the blue cushioned fold down seats weren’t the most uncomfortable option the university had to offer. Aria could feel eyes burning into her back as she walked across the room, felt the warmth travel down her body, she shook off the feeling and continued to her seat. She deposited her backpack onto the desk whilst she removed her black puffer jacket and settled into her chair. Aria unzipped her backpack and found her laptop, sliding it out of its designated pocket and placing it on the desk. All the while she still sensed eyes on her, cataloging her every move. She thought she could sneak a glance at Mr. Soya whilst he was busy setting up his laptop but when she looked up, she found his eyes already locked on her. Aria told herself to look away, but she didn’t want to look away. 

This was the first time she could unabashedly stare at this man because it was completely okay for the next three hours. It was her job to watch him, and hang off his every word whilst he explained complex theories about things Aria did not understand. He didn’t look particularly embarrassed about being caught with his eyes glued to her. In fact, he looked pretty pleased with himself, he did the tongue lip bite thing that made Aria feel things and she squeezed her legs together to appease the ache. Aria won the strange staring contest she was having with her new lecturer and he looked down, grinning, his long fingers moved seamlessly across his keyboard as he linked it to the projector. The strange moment was over almost as quickly as it began and he started teaching. 

“Hello, I’m Dr. Theo Michaels. I understand Molly was supposed to be with you today but due to unforeseen circumstances you’ve ended up with me. Thankfully, I have taught on this module before and I don’t think we’re going to have a problem.”

No problem?! Aria guffawed to herself. How was she supposed to ogle him when he came to buy his subpar coffee after this. That was definitely crossing a line, probably a line written in black ink on a university code of conduct. A big line that said something like ‘ _ students must not dream of fucking their lecturers when they masturbate, no matter how hot they are when they do the tongue lip bite thing’.  _

Dr. Soya/Theo continued to address the class, “we’re going to be looking at cerebral hemispheres and the cerebral cortex,” he clicked on the remote and the slide changed over. Displaying a diagram highlighting the functional regions of the cerebral cortex, Theo briefly discussed each region, waving the lazer over the screen to indicate the section he was talking about.

“So, as you should all know by now the right hemisphere controls motor functions on the left side of the body and the left hemisphere will control functions on the right side of the body, so therefore if your patient has had a stroke on the left side of the brain you’ll see a weakness on the right side,” Theo scanned the class and Aria thought his eye’s hovered over her for a second longer than everyone else, “is everyone following?” he turned to address the rest of the room again, a chorus of faint yes’s followed. 

“Fantastic” Theo continued his lecture and I continued to stare dumbfounded by the information spewing out of his mouth. I was once again one of the only students in the class not frantically writing notes. Though, today was an improvement on past lectures because I was able to watch Theo. His long legs were carrying him across the floor, it was like he couldn’t stay still, as he explained the visual cortex, using his arms to gesture as he passionately described a concept. His white button down shirt was rolled up above his elbows and Aria’s eyes couldn’t help but stare at the way his muscles flickered as he moved. It was like he was hyptnosing her with each wave of his hand, Aria’s fantasies were about to get a lot more detailed now she could probably draw his hands from memory. She began to wonder what his long fingers would feel like clasped around her neck and jumped, blinking profusely and squeezing her eyes shut to make the image fade away. She even went as far as to shake her head, as if that would cause the picture to shatter and disappear. 

“The prefrontal cortex is involved in social cognition and therefore moral decision making, a test used in psychology created by Gazzaniga uses a dilemma to look at a person’s ability to make decisions” Aria was well aware of the irony of learning about moral compasses, when she clearly didn’t possess one. Who in their right mind fantasised about their professor choking them during class. 

“So, we’re going to be using the ‘trolley car dilemma’ and I’d like us to have a little discussion about your thought process. Here goes, the car’s moving down a train track, it’s heading straight for five people who can’t move. But, you’re in luck! You can reach a lever averting the direction of the train onto another track, but there’s one person working on the rail, who again, won’t be able to move out of the way in time.”

“So, what you’re saying is we have to stand by and let five people die or choose to kill one person?” a scottish lad named Jake shouted out from across the room.

“Exactly, what would you do?” Theo scanned the class again, locking eyes with students as he went, “what would  _ you _ do?” he repeated again as his gaze found mine. 

“That can’t be a yes or no answer,” another student protested, Theo shrugged and bit his full bottom lip. Dammit Dr. Soya, do you not  _ know _ what that does to me, I’m meant to be concentrating. 

“A utilitarian view asserts that the moral thing to do would be to direct the train towards the one man,” Theo proposed to the class, holding his arms up at either side of him in an over exaggerated shrugging motion. Aria was captivated by the way his white shirt bunched around his muscles.

“But then, you’ve taken an active effort in killing someone. Prior to that you’re technically an innocent bystander but now you’re a murderer,” Katie responded with a smug smile on her face as she pushed her thick black hair behind her left ear, like she’d solved world hunger or something.

“Ah, but,” Theo emphasised and held his pointer finger up in the air to indicate his argument, “some interpretations of our moral obligation as humans suggest that being present in that moment, and able to influence the outcome, constitutes an obligation to participate and furthermore, deciding not to intervene would be considered the immoral act.” Theo looked around at the class who’d broken out into enthusiastic conversations with their peers. “Well, guys … I’ll leave you with that to think about and we'll call it an end for today. I bet you’re starving and I need a coffee,” he clapped his hands together, “I’ll be here for the next 15 minutes if anyone has any burning questions about today's content, but you can always email me instead.”

It sounded like a mini earthquake as her peers began chatting, packing away their belongings and exiting the room. Aria took it slowly, evaluating whether she’d look like a fool if she made conversation with Theo. She could think of a fake question? Hell, she should probably think of a real question if her grades in A&P were anything to go by. Nope, she decided against it, it would be highly embarrassing, she served him coffee at a deli for christ sake they weren’t _ friends _ . 

“You were quiet today…” Aria tripped over her own feet, not expecting Theo’s honey like voice, it sounded different when it was just directed at her rather than a class of 60 students. 

“Was i?”

“I don’t know, was you?” Dr Soya, scrunched his nose and smirked. Was he flirting with her? Surely not. 

“You’re posher than I expected,” oh god. Word vomit. She hated the word vomit. 

He chuckled, rubbing at the stubble along his jaw. “Thank you?” he questioned, scrunching his dark eyebrows. 

“Sorry, um,” Aria floundered for something to cover up her fuck up, “I just meant, I hadn’t noticed before, that you werent, um, that you weren’t from around here” as soon as she left this room she was going to smack her head off the closest wall. 

“No, I’m originally from London, I grew up in Wimbledon,” He supplied, she could practically hear the smile in his voice as he answered her, the sound reminded her of melted chocolate. _How!?_ _How Aria?!_ She questioned her brain, how could a voice remind her of confectionery. This made no sense and she clearly needed help.

Aria gave a half hearted nod and mumbled “makes sense, er anyway I better, uh, get going” she gestured over her shoulder toward the door, already turning around and walking away when he began to reply. 

“Ari-”

She was already halfway out the door when he called after her and she kept on walking. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys!  
> If you've read my fic I'd love to know what you think,


End file.
